Also, the National Science Foundation is so fucking slow. I keep getting emails for a job I applied for in like July, they keep asking me to update my resume (in case anything has changed in the past 6 months lol)

Yeah. Well, kinda. I was hard-coding a sequence of commands and then executing the program. I'm going to take my laptop with me next week and put in 360 controller input.

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To really impress them you can get somebody over the internet to control the robot via a 360 controller and a webcam. And if, as a side effect, I get to drive a robot around with an Xbox controller, then hey I'll just have to take one for the team.

That's actually what they're for. They're consumer devices for people who want to monitor their home whilst they are away. You log in through a web browser and control it through there. But I think they're configured so they can only be accessed locally through the university's network.

Modem went bad. I spend 2 hours trying every conceivable thing to fix it. Call cable company, router isn't even showing up as receiving a signal on their end. Accept that it's dead and move on. While cleaning up I decide to plug it in one more time just for the sake of futility. Works. Technology, man. This wouldn't have happened if I had a router robot.

Mine hasn't really been fucked up in the traditional way. Now I just can't seem to sleep for more than five hours at once, no matter what. Last week was basically waking up at 3/4am after a few hours sleep, still being tired but not sleeping and then going to do stuff very tiredly. That said, I just collapsed on my bed seven hours ago and spent at least five of those sleeping unintentionally.

I never got round to playing the online. Not sure I want to. I can see myself replaying the story and becoming increasingly annoyed with it though.

Season 3 my favorite season. Has the best villain in the series. 4 was good, 5 was great, 6 was weak, 7 was good, 8 was weak. Really need to get on rewatching the series. Season 5 ends on the darkest note. So good.

I'm a bit skeptical of the revival but I really hope they deliver. I'm going to fanboy it anyway so it doesn't really matter.

Boss. Add Kinect for proper voice commands to use with shouts and you've made it closer to living in Skyrim than ever before.

Speaking of Skyrim, me and an e-bro are going to try to make a somewhat substantial mod. The idea is to make spellcasting more accessible to players who wield two-handed weapons (namely archers -- just because being an arcane archer is always a favorite of mine in RPGs) by creating a series of spells that are mapped to the power button (RB) instead of requiring a free hand to cast. Have already sorted out a few spells that I want to make, and it's entirely doable. Mostly spells that work in conjunction with weapons rather than just being stand-alone. An example would be a spell that causes the player's weapon to deal fire damage for X amount of time when cast. The ability to summon arrows that have special effect, or the ability to summon bundles of arrows that stay in the inventory permanently (but have a value of 0). Plus an additional .esp with Dawnguard and Dragonborn support that uses effects from those expanions. Should be neat if it works out.

Sounds cool as long as it's balanced correctly. Wouldn't want it to be too overpowered.

New pathfinding today. My lecturer worked on an Aliens vs Predators game in 1999/2000 (around there, at least) and this is the kind of pathfinding they used. They called it stuff like scent mapping and heat mapping. With it the player lets out a signature that fades as it's further away from the player (in valid, walkable positions, so it doesn't spread evenly if there are obstacles). Then the bot just looks for where it gets stronger and follows.

Because there's just one pathfinding signature being emitted from the player, it can be used by a load of bots with practically no extra overhead, because only one map per player is going to be used. So here it is with ten thousand bots (not that you can really tell), running at over 30fps.

There are ways to make A* (the best algorithm from last week) more efficient, but doing that only works with a static map. With scent mapping, things can be changed and it still works. A* is the best pathfinding for finding the shortest route most quickly, but this definitely has its uses (I didn't try ten thousand A* bots, but it would either crawl or crash). Very cool. It takes a few seconds for the "scent" to spread, but given the right gameplay context (such as aliens hunting down humans without visual aid, as a completely random example), it adds to the effect.

Looks neat Jordan. It's a neat system for pathfinding. A lot of your posts about development have given me a greater appreciation for things in games that I didn't even consider before.

So there's a gas leak outside, and my house is the one they need to root through to fix it. Which means my heat's been off for a few hours on this wonderful sub-freezing day. And once the gas company is done fixing everything up, they need to call in a third party company to relight the pilots on everything. Because apparently, after a gas repair, lightning the pilots will result in a momentary... small fireball... that the gas company isn't trained to handle.

You'd think they'd prepare for a small fireball considering that it's to be expected in a situation like this. Doctors know there might be blood, pimps know they might have to choke a bitch. Just seems practical.

Hm. Sorry for berating you. Spyro is Spyro and Spyro is the best. You still should pick up the MGS series.

$30 digital, $40 physical. I knew it was going to be smaller, but still expected at least five hours of cutscenes and gameplay. Presumably the time in the article includes cutscenes. MGS4 only really had five hours of gameplay, but the cutscenes bumped it up.

I haven't really played a Zelda game. I've played the first section of A Link to the Past and a fair amount of Phantom Hourglass. 99% of my Zelda time is the latter. I couldn't really get into Super Mario Bros either. I like 1 the most. I wonder if people who say 3 is the best are delusional in some way because I don't see it. I haven't really tried Final Fantasy either. I've watched my cousin play them for hours, but turn based RPGs were never my sort of thing aside from Pokémon.

To be honest, I was never really a platformer fan. Super Meat Boy changed that. It's the best implementation of a platformer out there, and an all-round amazing game. And well programmed, just FYI. Anybody who hasn't played at least up to the fourth world should do that straight away. I don't have Steam keys but could probably link to my Humble Bundle download (I think? It's the DRM free version. I don't think there are any share limits on the link). It's a wonderful game.

I changed my scent map to make it look cooler. Demonstrator (helper) at the workshop today said it's the best implementation he's seen for a few years. I guess nobody really pays attention to the design because it's not graded. And he referred to me by my name. Somebody remembered! That's a step in the right direction (no pun intended).

Damn look at you. So here's the plan, we'll draft up a storyline, if anyone is interested in designing characters they can take the lead, then you can make it run properly. Then we beta test and then launch the game (we'll decide if we charge for the first product) build the fanbase then launch our own gaming company.

I haven't really played a Zelda game. I've played the first section of A Link to the Past and a fair amount of Phantom Hourglass. 99% of my Zelda time is the latter. I couldn't really get into Super Mario Bros either. I like 1 the most. I wonder if people who say 3 is the best are delusional in some way because I don't see it.

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You're killing me here. SMB3 is fantastic. Everything is great. Great level design, great soundtrack, fun art design, good pacing. That game is one of the most perfect examples of how difficulty curves should be done.

Damn look at you. So here's the plan, we'll draft up a storyline, if anyone is interested in designing characters they can take the lead, then you can make it run properly. Then we beta test and then launch the game (we'll decide if we charge for the first product) build the fanbase then launch our own gaming company.

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Sounds like you've got it all sorted out. You can be the lead teamy ... person thingy.

You're killing me here. SMB3 is fantastic. Everything is great. Great level design, great soundtrack, fun art design, good pacing. That game is one of the most perfect examples of how difficulty curves should be done.

I've definitely played the full version, but I can't for the life of me remember where. It's not on my XBL account and the Steam copy I have has never been touched. That's not to say I'm terribly far into it, but I've definitely played.